CABA Information Series

IS-2004-50: The Digital Future Report: Surveying the Digital Future

This report from the University of Southern California “explores how the Internet influences the social, political, and economic behavior of users and non-users.” About 75 percent of those surveyed used the Internet for an average of 12.5 hours per week in 2004. Email and Web surfing were the top uses. Sixty percent of those who have stopped using the Internet say they do not miss it. There is growing skepticism of the reliability of information gleaned from the Internet. There has been a slight increase in on-line shopping over four years. Seventy-five percent of parents are not concerned about the time spent by children on line. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed accessed health information via the Internet. Eighty-eight percent are concerned about on-line privacy.